erse.

In the "Eve of St. Agnes," Keats has revealed possibilities in the
Spenserian stanza of which Spenser himself was not aware, and the "Ode
to a Nightingale" and the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" have a classic beauty
which can be recognized though not successfully copied.

Of the more modern poets Browning's strange, uncouth phrasing is full of
power; Tennyson's mastery is shown in his exquisite choice of words, and
Swinburne's meters and rhymes are worth close application.

And so one might go on for a dozen pages and still have an incomplete
list. It is not what one reads but how one reads. The books wait on the
shelves and through reading and through reading only can one cultivate
that most necessary though indefinable quality--Good Taste.

XII

HINTS FOR BEGINNERS

CHAPTER XII

HINTS FOR BEGINNERS

For one whose verse runs easily and whose occasional sales are an
encouragement, this last chapter is perhaps unnecessary. Yet there may
come times in routine, monotonous production when even he loses in
interest, and with this loss his work falls off in quality. It is only
through interest and desire that anything has ever been accomplished,
and if these are not sustained the work must stay at a low level. Even
the seasoned writer must look forward to his work if he wishes to
improve.

For the beginner whose airy verse does not trip but rather lumbers, who
is unable to write anything worthy of sale and whose ideas refuse to be
crowded into the right number of feet, it might be an excellent thing
occasionally to drop all thought of pentameters and amphibrachs and go
back to the old-fashioned rhymed alphabet.

"A is for Ant
That lives in the ground,
B is for Bear--
A terror when found----"

and so on through the twenty-six harmless letters. It is an exercise in
ingenuity if nothing else and if the writer has any skill at drawing it
could be converted into a delightful gift for a five-year-old. Lear, the
author of the Nonsense books, did not think it beneath his dignity to
write six of these alphabets in varying stanza forms.

A little harder, but still not too hard, is the limerick, examples of
which are given in Chapter IX. As a gift, a series of illustrated
limericks on people you know would have the merit of novelty at least.

To see one's productions in print is always an incentive to better work.
The type is cheering even when its legibility reveals several faults
unnotice